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If I ever meet the person who made the new Transformers movie I’m going to kick them in their knee. Honestly, the movie, aside from being over 2 full hours long, was pretty good…I would say it was equal parts fantastic and complete crap.

Fantastic in the sense that the special effect were first rate, the action sequences were well constructed and pretty easy to follow and the story line didn’t bog down too much… it kept moving.

Complete crap in several ways.

The overall story line of the two movies has some glaring inconsistencies with it’s self and common sense in general… To avoid looking like a TOTAL nerd I won’t expound.

This movie displays some severely critical messages about our society as a whole both in the way it was made and in the way it’s been received. Immediately into the movie I noticed that the Transformers were speaking a lot more than they did in the first movie, but more concerning was WHAT they were actually saying. 90% of the profanity, crude, immature humor and graphic violence was from the “good” transformers, not the humans or the “bad”transformers… There was a lot more “personality” given to the individual robots in this movie, and sadly, the “personalities” were LOADED with racial stereotypes and attitudes more congruent with a gangster rap video than a sci-fi action movie about cartoon robots. I don’t remember my Transformers ever saying “bitch-ass Decepticon” before shooting someone in the face or “I’m gona bust a cap in your ass” with a gold tooth and chains around their neck, or “Damn I’m good” after cutting another robot in half in slow motion. All lines spoken by the good guys in the movie. The movie even ended with Optimus Prime twisting a pipe around the head of the bad guy and saying “give me your face” as he literally rips his face off, spilling different kinds of oil or whatever all over the movie screen. It saddens me that people think movies have to be this way to be any good. None of this fit with the movie and was all blatantly and purposefully added into the movie.

Equally nauseating was the way the audience reacted to these certain scenes. THIS IS NOT A MOVIE FOR CHILDREN! Movies have ratings for a reason. I’ll say this so nobody misunderstands me, I dont want to be accused of saying something I didnt…

ANYONE WHO TAKES THEIR CHILD TO SEE THIS MOVIE IS A BAD PARENT.

Movies have ratings for a reason people!!!

The audience in the theatre was mostly children, brought by “parents” who undoubtedly thought that special effects robots= childrens movie and perfectly displayed everything that is wrong with our world.

At every crude sexual joke they taught their kids to laugh. At every graphic mutilation they taught their kids to cheer. At every screen shot of a pretty girl the “men” in the room let out an audible “woah!” or “holy crap!” with their wives or girlfriends present…

It makes me sad to think that the people my age who are making these movies now, people who also grew up watching things like the Transformers, have degraded to the point that this is what they feel they need to make it into… pop-culture trash. We cannot even appreciate a science fiction movie without crude humor, graphic violence and overall immaturity in every facet. We have to include testicle jokes and dogs humping each other because it’s all our society can understand. We have to include half-naked women because nothing else will hold american attention. All our children want to be “gangsters” so we have to make our heros into gangsters as well.

My opinion: this movie is a disgrace and the people who made it should be embarrassed and ashamed. Consumers who embrace this sort of “entertainment” (not just this movie in particular, but all such) should also be embarrassed and ashamed. It’s no wonder our culture is going down the toilet when we glorify crap like this. The STORY being told, the depth and message of the movie has taken a backseat to the superficial and immature, the violent and profane. There was a time in entertainment when such content was added for the sake of the uneducated poor who filled the sidelines of the playhouse, because they didn’t understand the depth of the story the way the rest of the audience did. Today such content is the mainstream and those who enjoy taste, class and depth in their entertainment have been left sitting there with disgusted expressions, lazy imagination and insulted intellect.

Like this:

When I was young my parents made a list of TV shows we weren’t allowed to watch; The Simpsons, because Bart was a jerk, He-Man and The Smurfs because they used magic, G.I. Joe because it was too violent… When I got older a youth pastor gave me a poster that has a list of popular bands on one side and the “christian” alternative band on the other; If you like such and such you should listen to so and so… For my 15th birthday I got a t-shirt that had the Abercrombie & Fitch logo that actually said ’A Breadcrumb & Fish”… Is this what the Bible means when it says to be in the world but not of it?

Stand back and take a look… the Christians and non all look the same, the music, the clothes, the magazines, books… Christians and non all drive the same cars, live in the same houses, eat in the same restaurants, think the same thoughts, download the same porn. As Christians we tell ourselves that we are living the life because we have bible verses on our t shirts and a jesus fish on the mini van. After a while we build our own christian sub-culture, we look at the “sinners” around us and say to ourselves “if they like it, it’s wrong” and we rid ourselves of it in the name of holiness. We only listen to “christian” music, read “christian” romance novels, wear “christian” t shirts, and look down our “christian” noses at our poor lost neighbors and think, “if only they would start wearing t shirts like mine…”

Jesus used the phrase “whitewashed tombs” to describe folks who think their efforts make them holy; clean on the outside, crumbling and decomposing on the inside. The Pharisees of Jesus day had their t shirts as well, they had their list of TV shows and musicians to avoid, the foods they were all to proud to not be eating. When it came right down to it, their “churchy” subculture did nothing more than feed their pride while the naked hooker, crying in the dirt at the feet of Jesus was heart-wide-open before the very throne of God. Nothing hidden. Nothing fake. Beyond the rescue of lies and fig leaves.

When we talk about The Church and The Culture we are talking about this glorious tiny point in space and time where holiness meets profanity, where the bride of Christ stands up and starts brushing off the dirt, where she drops the filthy, tattered rags she wore on the street corner and puts on a dress so white it blinds the world!

It isn’t the job of the church to run from “culture”, or to make our own little bubble within the world where we’re all home schooled, make our own clothes and churn butter; it’s the churches job to accept the harsh reality of what we were, what we are, and share this gospel, the fantastic life-changing truth with those who are still far off, those who have not heard that there is a dress waiting for them, a Grace, ice cold rushing water that can wash them clean and stand them before the almighty God, blameless and full of joy! Culture isn’t to be avoided, embraced or mimicked. Culture is this process of who we are, becoming who we will be. The Church isn’t outside of the culture, she is completely entangled in it. Christians aren’t better than the rest, no matter what their t shirts say. Christians are people. All The Church has to do to change the world is to remember that we are all in this together.

When I was young my parents made a list of TV shows we weren’t allowed to watch; The Simpsons, because Bart was a jerk, He-Man and The Smurfs because they used magic, G.I. Joe because it was too violent… When I got older a youth pastor gave me a poster that has a list of popular bands on one side and the “christian” alternative band on the other; If you like such and such you should listen to so and so… For my 15th birthday I got a t-shirt that had the Abercrombie & Fitch logo that actually said ‘A Breadcrumb & Fish’… Is this what the Bible means when it says to be in the world but not of it?

Stand back and take a look… the Christians and non all look the same, the music, the clothes, the magazines, books… Christians and non all drive the same cars, live in the same houses, eat in the same restaurants, think the same thoughts, download the same porn. As Christians we tell ourselves that we are living the life because we have bible verses on our t shirts and a jesus fish on the mini van. After a while we build our own christian sub-culture, we look at the “sinners” around us and say to ourselves “if they like it, it’s wrong” and we rid ourselves of it in the name of holiness. We only listen to “christian” music, read “christian” romance novels, wear “christian” t shirts, and look down our “christian” noses at our poor lost neighbors and think, “if only they would start wearing t shirts like mine…”

Jesus used the phrase “whitewashed tombs” to describe folks who think their efforts make them holy; clean on the outside, crumbling and decomposing on the inside. The Pharisees of Jesus day had their t shirts as well, they had their list of TV shows and musicians to avoid, the foods they were all to proud to not be eating. When it came right down to it, their “churchy” subculture did nothing more than feed their pride while the naked hooker, crying in the dirt at the feet of Jesus was heart-wide-open before the very throne of God. Nothing hidden. Nothing fake. Beyond the rescue of lies and fig leaves.

When we talk about The Church and The Culture we are talking about this glorious tiny point in space and time where holiness meets profanity, where the bride of Christ stands up and starts brushing off the dirt, where she drops the filthy, tattered rags she wore on the street corner and puts on a dress so white it blinds the world!

It isn’t the job of the church to run from “culture”, or to make our own little bubble within the world where we’re all home schooled, make our own clothes and churn butter; it’s the churches job to accept the harsh reality of what we were, what we are, and share this gospel, the fantastic life-changing truth with those who are still far off, those who have not heard that there is a dress waiting for them, a Grace, ice cold rushing water that can wash them clean and stand them before the almighty God, blameless and full of joy! Culture isn’t to be avoided, embraced or mimicked. Culture is this process of who we are, becoming who we will be. The Church isn’t outside of the culture, she is completely entangled in it. Christians aren’t better than the rest, no matter what their t shirts say. Christians are people. All The Church has to do to change the world is to remember that we are all in this together.